you sure about that?
thought the mandate was just for SoCal tracks.
i think Bay Meadows, Golden Gate and the fair circuit are safe.
I hope I am right.


Repent

f*ck.
I read differently, but Im sure you are right.

well,
that means we need all the breakdowns and problems we can get btwn now and then.
might not make a difference, but it cant hurt.
I wish one of these tracks(mainly the 2 Magna tracks) would stand up and preserve the tradition that is dirt racing in America.

Im going to lmao when they decide to go back to regular dirt in 2009 after 2 years of that crap.
lot of wasted time and money.


Repent

thanks,
I went to the CHRB's website and read the press releases after you posted that about all CA tracks.

you were right.
any track running thoroughbreds for more than 4 consecutive weeks has to install some sort of synethic surface.
gave them 4 to choose from.
Hollypark obviously chose cushion.
I heard Del Mar chose the same, but Im not sure.
do you know?


Repent

Wow... I wouldn't wish death upon any horse to end a debate. Crazy shiat... :eek:

I generally really like reading Repent's replies, he can make me laugh at times, but man, Repent, you can't possibly really mean what you say, and if you really do mean it than you are not what we all are, whether we are gamblers, owners, breeders or just like the majority .... fans. There is no way you could be actually pulling for these beautiful animals to break down and die so you could prove a point. I think anyone who would wish this has to think of these horses as nothing more than numbered saddle cloths, and not the wonderful animals they are. :(

well,
part of the difference btwn me and a lot of you is that I have no appreciation for the actual horses themselves.
ppl talk about going to KY and visiting these past great racehorses and I have to tell you, all i can think about is how much of a waste of time that would be.

the closest I ever get to a horse is the paddock when they are saddling them at Lone Star.
and I only go down there to see if they are washed out or not.
its not like I have any desire to be close to an animal.

I truly believe we are in a crucial time for American racing.
I see this rubber polytrack crap going in at major racetracks and its like nobody gets it.
this threatens the very existence of one of our country's oldest sporting institutions-thoroughbred dirt racing.

dirt racing is what we do better than any country in the world.
others have turf.
so do we, but its not the primary aspect of our racing.
10 years from now, are we going to look around and claim to be the king of polytrack racing?
maybe we are going to be that, but who really gives a sh*t?
who want to be known as the country who breeds the best synthetic wax and rubber runners in the world?
its downright embarassing.

so Im sorry if my words offend some people.
i know that a lot of you are better ppl than I am.
and you care about these horses that we bet on.
but I dont.
I wish I could say that I hope everything goes well at Turfway, KEE, and Holypark.
but I dont.
I hope they fail.
I hope they fail quickly so we can stop all this nonsense about synthetic surfaces.



Repent

The only thing that I hate to admit about Repent's post is that he may have a point regarding the rush to polytrack surfaces in light of the sport's long North American history as a dirt-based sport.

For a long period of time, major league baseball stadium owners chose to install artificial grass in lieu of natural grass due to its durability and ease of maintenance and we now see how the number of artificial surfaces in baseball have dwindled to just a few. The key difference is that artificial surfaces in baseball proved to be dangerous to the players and exacerbated injuries rather than prevented them while the expectation with polytrack is that it will prevent injuries to the "players" - those horses who really don't have much influence on the surface over which they ride.

My concern about polytrack is that there should have been a long term pilot track where poly is used for 5-10 years to determine not just the number of breakdowns, but also to see whether the synthetic surface produces other ancillary health problems (lung issues in breathing for example) that actually could outnumber the value in lives saved from breakdown prevention. In other words, are there significant side effects to polytrack? I'd sure like to know before I see every dirt track in America disappear.

By the way, this has become a total hijacking of a post entitled "the lava man thread...."

easier said than done tho changing back to dirt....big investment laying down a poly surface. those who are considering it would do well to watch woodbine for a while, see how things go...turfway as well. they've had some issues there already. not something i would just jump on doing.
i think cali made a huge mistake mandating such a sweeping change.

i'm also surprised that i haven't seen any comments on the addition of toe grabs at woodbine. they hadn't been allowed, but will be this month, if it hasn't already happened.

Repent,

You should start betting on Nascar... more predictable than betting on horses. I don't understand how you can care about the future of horse racing if you don't care about the horses themselves... that makes no sense at all. Without the horses, there would be no racing...

I dont think repent "wants" to see any horses get hurt to prove his point and I think that some of you are taking his statement the wrong way. There are plenty of people out there that say they care about racing and are licking there chops everytime another horse breaks down and are giving high fives to each other. And those people are the ones that create polytrack. Our racing integrity is at stake here and there is one thing that we are great at and that is racing on the dirt. It will be a woeful time in the US when the Europeans come over here and run 1 2 3 in the Classic. Repent and I (hopefully he does) hope that something else can open up peoples eyes to this polycrap s*it and help save what we have spent over 100 years building, the best DIRT horses in the world.

"I wish I could say that I hope everything goes well at Turfway, KEE, and Holypark.
but I dont.
I hope they fail.
I hope they fail quickly so we can stop all this nonsense about synthetic surfaces."

I guess you can take that whatever way you want, but I'd rather the point be proven in a different way. JMO...

oh, and then there's this gem repent put further back in this thread:

'well,
that means we need all the breakdowns and problems we can get btwn now and then.'

kgar, i have been very pessimistic about poly, and hate to see everyone rush to change to it.
but please, don't try to defend repent. he's always been an outrageous poster. altho he said he'd keep it clean here, out of respect to steve, all his cursing and name calling belies his statement on that topic.

I just wrote this huge f*cking thread and it erased somehow and sent me to an administrator F8uckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk